Posts Tagged ‘Mayor Bill de Blasio’

The Municipal ID Bill designed to help immigrants that was just passed by the New York City Council will become law as soon as it is signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The bill allows NYC residents who can prove residency and identity to obtain a municipal ID card that would permit them to access governmental services such as entering public buildings, obtain a library card, open a bank account and gain access to hospitals to visit patients and to schools to meet with their children’s teachers.

The bill is designed to primarily benefit NYC’s immigrants who face barriers to accessing a government issued form of identification. Similar programs have been implemented in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New Haven.

The Municipal ID program will probably be administered by the Human Resources Administration. The plan is to have at least one site in each borough where applications will be made available for pick-up and submission. Documents will be required to prove identity and NYC residency.

The law should take effect soon — six months after it is signed into law by the Mayor. The administrating agency is permitted to establish a fee for applications for the ID card but will adopt rules permitting residents who cannot afford to pay such a fee to receive a full or partial waiver.

For information about the Municipal ID application process – once it becomes available – or if you have a question about an immigration matter, call the Catholic Charities–managed New York State New Americans Hotline at 1-800-566-7636, Monday through Friday, from 9am to 8pm. Hotline operators can answer questions in up to 200 languages.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration detailed plans on May 19, 2014 to expand and create what is described as the largest and most proven homelessness prevention program in the nation. The plan, announced by Commissioner Gilbert Taylor at the budget hearing before the New York City Council, focuses on reducing homelessness, transitioning homeless families from shelter into permanent housing, and improving shelter conditions.

Catholic Charities, long a leader in preventing homelessness and serving the homeless, supports this plan.

“With today’s announcement, the Mayor has taken an important and necessary step in addressing this crisis,” said Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, Executive Director, The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. “This multi-faceted plan includes programmatic and funding commitments to protect families from losing their homes, while creating housing opportunities for those who currently have little recourse but to spend their nights in shelters. It contains concrete solutions to help vulnerable populations.”

Specifically, the plan:

• Proposes creation of two rent subsidy plans that will assist working families who have been in shelter for more than a year and vulnerable populations

• Utilizes targeted supportive housing for high needs populations

• Reaffirms the administration’s commitment to assess, improve, and reimagine shelter models to better serves families and individuals before they seek shelter, address their needs while in shelter, and strategically plans for families exiting shelter

• Invests in better outcomes for homeless households as they achieve independence, creates and develops higher quality shelters with better targeted programming throughout the system, and it reduces reliance on shelter models that do not encourage supportive environments.

“As New York City sets forth on an ambitious task of creating 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next 10 years, the archdiocese stands as a ready, willing and able partner,” reports Ron Lajoie in Catholic New York.

That is the message Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic Charities, delivered to Mayor Bill de Blasio, on behalf of Cardinal Dolan, when the mayor unveiled his $41 billion joint initiative to refurbish or create new housing for middle- and low-income New Yorkers across the five boroughs May 5.
In announcing his support for the mayor’s plan, Cardinal Dolan had said that creating affordable housing for all New Yorkers was nothing less than a human rights issue.
‘New York City’s current crisis of housing affordability threatens the basic human right to decent housing,’ Cardinal Dolan said in a statement.
Msgr. Sullivan,who was at the news conference representing Cardinal Dolan, pointed to the more than 50 years experience the archdiocese has had in creating, constructing, preserving and rehabilitating housing for the poor, working families, seniors and those with special needs.
Through its parishes and committed clergy, religious communities, and Catholic Charities and its affiliated community-based organizations, the Church has created more than 6,000 units of affordable housing for New Yorkers.
‘We offer the city a number of things,’ explained Msgr. Sullivan during an interview with CNY in his 11th floor office at the New York Catholic Center in Manhattan. ‘One of the very fundamental things we offer is our belief that every person is made in the image of God and deserves certain basic necessities. One of them is our belief that basic housing is a human right.
Secondly, very practically, we begin from the fact that we have put that into practice by the development and preservation of housing, which requires a certain amount of commitment and expertise and requires being around for the long term. We are an organization that has been around here for centuries and, if I might say this, we plan to be around until Jesus comes again…
The third thing we offer, and the cardinal has indicated this, is we have changing use of church facilities, so that as populations shift and we don’t need some of our properties for certain things there are new possibilities.’

In the Wall Street Journal’s recent series uncovering shortcomings in New York City’s Sandy recovery programs, Reporter Michael Howard Saul turned to Msgr. Kevin Sullivan for insight. Frustrated Hurricane Sandy storm victims and elected officials, Mr. Saul reports, say City Hall has been heavy on promises and short on results.

“Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, which is helping storm victims, said homeowners’ recovery efforts ‘have been made even more challenging by layers of red tape brought on by the multiple layers of government agencies involved in the process.'”

To counter this morass, Mayor Bill de Blasio told the Wall Street Journal that his recently appointed administration has been working “day and night to hack through the red tape.”

Meanwhile, Catholic Charities continues to help Sandy victims recover. From the time Hurricane Sandy pounded New York, Catholic Charities has been providing disaster relief to those who need it. From disaster response professionals visiting parishes to deliver information and resources, to volunteers collecting and distributing food and supplies, to neighbors checking in on neighbors, the entire Catholic Charities community has responded to meet the human needs of the victims, providing help and creating hope for rebuilding lives.

The New York State Disaster Case Management Program run by Catholic Charities has provided information, referral and disaster case management to nearly 22,000 households.

“Families and homeowners who are rebuilding from the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy are still facing a complex and long-term recovery,” Msgr. Sullivan said. “Our long-term case management for these families is critical to navigating some of the unintended consequences that arise such as potentially higher tax bills on their property that they did not anticipate.”

Catholic Charities and fellow social service organizations hosted a reception at the Human Services Council on East 59th Street. on Wednesday, March 5th, to welcome newly appointed New York City officials, introduce them to leaders of our affiliated agencies and provide a ground-floor opportunity to share our experiences and priorities serving New Yorkers in need.

Formal and informal discussions focused on establishing strong collaborative relationships between the human services and government agencies to effectively tackle the issues of poverty, illness and barriers to success.

New York City Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, Deputy Mayor for Policy Initiatives Richard Buery and Director of the Office of Operations Mindy Tarlow were some of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s frontline team who spoke with dozens of directors and staff from agencies affiliated with Catholic Charities.

Several other New York City nonprofit leaders including the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, UJA Federation of New York, United Neighborhood Houses, Human Services Council and the United Way helped host and participated in this groundbreaking event.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency today, Wednesday, February 5, as another storm pounds the region with snow, sleet and freezing rain.

Winter storm warnings are now in effect for the entire area until 6pm. Heavy snow is transitioning to sleet and freezing rain.

Please use extra caution if you must venture out today. Temperatures are below freezing in our region and even as the snow changes to rain, it is freezing and creating a sheet of ice on all surfaces.

Due to the storm and icing conditions, NYC Department for the Aging closed all senior centers for Wednesday, February 5, 2014.

To ensure seniors’ safety, we ask that all seniors avoid going outside until the storm has cleared and call their respective senior centers and/or 311 to find out more information about post-storm operations.

Meanwhile, The New York City Office of Emergency Management issued a hazardous travel advisory and Mayor Bill de Blasio is urging commuters to use mass transit. However, due to signal problems, there are currently numerous 1, 2, 3 train service disruptions between Times Square and each line’s northernmost stop. For updates, please visit www.mta.info.

But the best advice is to stay inside. Ice associated with the storm can knock down trees and power lines and make walking treacherous.